Forever
by katie04scarlett
Summary: What happened after the ALW ending of the POTO? Right now it is very short, but it's just the beginning! Please read and review, I have no idea what I am doing...
1. Erik

Erik was alone in the dark. He shook his head at himself- it was typical. He had started out his life very much alone, very much in the dark, and it was probably proper, in some way, that he would end his life the same way. Christine had left, and Erik had slid through a trap door to wait for the mob to finish destroying his home. It was funny how, when one lived in a place for long enough, it would become a home- even a house that was hundreds of feet below the earth in a cellar of the Paris Opera House.  
  
He had been prepared for something like this. The trap door opened to a little room that was damp and uncomfortable but infinitely more pleasant than being beaten to death by a raging mob. As he crouched in the dampness and listened to the mob destroy the only things he had left to him, it surprised him that the only thing he could think of was the way Christine's eyes had looked before she had turned away. Those eyes, full of pity and passion and something else... Something he could not name, something he had not seen before. And then it was over, and she had left him alone, to go be with her vicomte.  
  
Then the mob had left, and now Erik was alone in the remains of his shattered home, cursing the darkness and shadows that were engulfing him and taunting him with Christine. She was everywhere, sitting in the chair or emerging from her room- Erik wished for the first time in his life for a lamp with which to cut the shadows and curse them back to the hell from which they came, the hell he knew all too well.  
  
Sadness and overwhelming loss welled up in his throat and burst from his lungs in a haunting cry. "Christine! Christine!" Then again, softer, with tears in his voice, "Christine..." But it was as it had been for his entire life, and would be until the day he died. No one answered. 


	2. Christine

"No, please... Please, he needs help, he needs me to help him..." The carriage hit an extra large rut in the road and jounced Christine awake by banging her head on the side. Rain slashed the carriage from all directions, the rain that had begun shortly after they had left Paris and was still continuing now, hours later. Two star-crossed lovers racing across Paris in the rain... It should have been romantic.  
  
Raoul, sitting next to her, stirred in his sleep. What should have been romantic in a dark, dangerous way was nothing but exhausting, and both of them had fallen asleep before they had even left the city. Christine drew back the curtain to look outside, but the night was still black, and all she could see was her reflection, watery from the pouring rain running down the window. I wonder if he's alright, she thought, and right away she knew he wasn't. She knew that when she and Raoul left him, that Erik's heart had been broken, and there was no hope of ever recovering. For if he could not make Christine love her Angel, what woman would fall in love with him?  
  
"Christine?" Raoul stirred again and sat up straight. "Darling, can you see where we are?"  
  
"It's still night, Raoul." How could she fall asleep completely in love, and wake up as a totally different person?  
  
He sensed it, as well. "Well, perhaps we should have the driver stop, anyway, and rest from this terrible bouncing."  
  
"Raoul, where are we going?"  
  
"North, my love. We're going north to be married."  
  
"Will we return to Paris after we're married?"  
  
Raoul's voice was slightly cautious. "No... Why should we want to go back to such a place?"  
  
"I don't know... Never mind. I'm just tired, I suppose."  
  
But deep in her soul where only her Angel had been, she was beginning to wonder. 


	3. Something Odd Is Stirring

The carriage came to a halt late the next morning. Christine had given up trying to look out the window, even when light came, since the rain still poured in heavy sheets outside. They had not spoken since late last night, and the tension between them was becoming almost too much to bear. That was why it was a terrible shock when Christine alighted from the carriage and found herself not outside of a quaint place to rest comfortably, but a train station.  
  
"Raoul?"  
  
"We must go North, Christine, far North to escape."  
  
Christine frowned, tears in her eyes. "Escape? Escape what? What are you running from, Raoul?"  
  
"Christine, Christine, you must know as much as I do! He will find us, he always finds us. And then he will take you away from me and down, down into that horrible hell of a cellar and I don't know if I can find you again, not without Madame Giry!" Raoul's rambling made Christine very nervous. Though she would have liked to stay, to turn around and go some place warm and quiet, she did not want to upset him any more. She attributed his nervous eyes and jittery manner to the terrible night they had just had.  
  
She bowed her head. "Of course, Raoul. Shall we board?"

Erik didn't know what to do.  
  
He couldn't see living here now, not with the memories of Christine walking across every room, sitting in every chair, singing in every shadow. And now that what seemed like the whole of Paris knew how to reach his house by the lake, it would not be safe to live there. They all thought him dead, and it would not do to be jumping up at every noise, concerned that some interested patron would choose to stumble into the wrong part of the Opera House.  
  
The very same memories of Christine that tortured him, however, were the only things that were making him want to stay. If he were to leave, he would have nothing to remind him of her. She wouldn't be in any chairs, in any rooms, and her sweet voice wouldn't resonate off of any walls. How could he leave the last place he had seen her, the places and things she had touched? What if she came back? How would she be able to find him?  
  
But she wasn't coming back, and he would just have to get used to that. And since she was not coming back, if he were to leave, what if he were to forget her? He could not promise that he wouldn't- his own mother's face was now erased from his memory, the only recollection he had was the sound of her crying as she handed him his very first mask. Erik's memory often chose to erase the pain, and nothing had ever cut him as deeply as Christine had last night. How could he leave the only reminders he had of her?  
  
So he stood, rooted to the spot. He knew he'd make a decision sooner or later. After all, this wasn't the first time he had met with an angry crowd of people. And believe it or not, this wasn't the first time he'd had his heart broken.


End file.
